O'Connell St North Melbourne 28/11/2010

Happy ending: logos repainted the right way up, and arrows added to eliminate confusion.  Thanks to City of Melbourne engineering staff for seeing this through. 

20/9/2010

Update: the worn-out logos were repainted - upside down!  Here's CityCyclist's email to the Council:

Thanks for your reply.  Engineering Services hasn't contacted me but some work has been done in O'Connell St.  The faded bike logos have been repainted - upside down.  So the team doing the painting were evidently under the same misapprehension about the direction of travel in the contra-flow lane as everybody else.  They think it's a bike lane mysteriously located on the right-hand side of the road, whereas it is in fact a contra-flow lane, but this can only be worked out by studying the "do not enter" signs at each end of the lane. 

So the opportunity was missed to add a directional arrow next to each bike logo, but does Council plan to do anything about the fact that the logos are now upside down and implying that this contra-flow lane is not a contra-flow lane? I would suggest that the situation is now worse, since previously we had some worn-out logos pointing in the right direction, now the new bright logos are adding to the confusion and danger because they are pointing in the wrong direction. 

Can we have the logos fixed and some directional arrows added as I suggested almost two months ago.  Alternatively perhaps engineering services could explain why the logos are upside down?

Counterflow bike lane 22/7/2010

O'Connell st has an unusal feature: a counter-flow bicycle lane.  This dates from when Bicycle Victoria were located in this street, but was installed by the City of Melbourne.  It is a handy way to get from the high-quality bicycle lanes in Queensbury St to the Markets.  There is good engineering and signage at each end, but in the middle things need to be improved.

Car drivers don't understand the lane, and frequently drive up the bicycle lane and often yell at cyclists to "stop going the wrong way".

Proposed solution:

The bicycle logos are worn out and need to be repainted.  When this is done, add an arrow next to each logo.  This should help motorists understand it is a two way street - for bikes.